"Some destinies are obvious. Some ballplayers are that blessed.

The left-handers. The flamethrowers. The guys stamped early with greatness and viewed forever with anticipation.

These are your first-round draft picks. Your Baseball America darlings. These are the majority of the players who will line the field during introductions at the All-Star Game on Tuesday evening.

Then there is James Shields.

The self-made All-Star. The blue-collar millionaire. The guy who saw 465 players selected ahead of him in the 2000 draft, and the guy who missed an entire minor-league season with a shoulder injury. The guy left off all of Tampa Bay's minor-league rosters in 2005, and the guy who took a step backward in 2010.

Today he makes his final start of the first half before taking off to Phoenix for the All-Star Game and the latest affirmation of a journey plotted by design rather than destiny.

"I wasn't a high draft pick. I wasn't on anybody's radar," Shields said. "I had to work my way through the entire organization. I had to outpitch all the first-rounders, I had to outpitch all the guys in front of me in order to get moved up.

"I had to put up the numbers, and I liked that because it was a challenge for me. I had all of these prospects ahead of me, and my goal was to outpitch them all. If I outpitched them, then no one could stop me.

"It's been a long road, no doubt about it. But I'm a grinder, man."

For a change, the grinder is being noticed. It has never been quite enough that Shields is one of the most durable pitchers in baseball, or that he has earned the only World Series win in franchise history. He has never gotten the acclaim of Scott Kazmir and never come close to a posed Sports Illustrated cover shot like David Price.

It has bothered him, truth be known. But it has bothered him in the right kind of way.

It is what drives Shields to spend offseasons working harder than almost anyone else. It is why, four days a week in the winter, he sets his alarm for 5 a.m. and spends a couple of hours in the gym before going to Tropicana Field at 9 for the regularly scheduled offseason workouts with Tampa Bay's other pitchers.

"He works his (butt) off," Rays trainer Ron Porterfield said. "I will vouch for that.""